January 2010
44 posts
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Cockatrice - Wikipedia →
A legendary creature, resembling a large rooster with a lizard-like tail. Its magical abilities include turning people to stone or killing them by either looking at them, touching them, or sometimes breathing on them.
It was repeated in the late-medieval bestiaries that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. A cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a...
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“[B]eing a sports fan isn’t just masochism with commercials.”
– Patrick, Albany, N.Y.
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Hendiatris/Tripartite motto - Wikipedia →
a figure of speech used for emphasis, in which three words are used to express one idea, like describing Sixteen Candles (1984) as a story about someone who feels unnoticed, unappreciated, unloved.
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Litotes - Wikipedia →
a figure of speech in which a certain statement is expressed by denying its opposite. For example, rather than merely saying that you are “high” (or even “so high”), one might say, “We’re not low.”
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“All food is ethnic food.”
– Tyler Cowen
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At least [two] hundred and fifty or more to see
dehydratedbabies:
Open images in a new tab for stunning high resolution, like this:
[See PokéMon from Slowpoke to Celebi after the jump]
I have no idea who originally made this, but these images are linked to first on Know Your Meme’s Alternate Universe Fan-Art entry. (Sidebar: I’m still amazed Know Your Meme exists, let alone is moderately helpful.)
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'Who Would Win in a Fight?' by Chris White →
A man can “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” with a legal team, or with Apache attack helicopters—he can even be great doing it. But say the Russian foreign minister calls the Constitution a slut at a U.N. conference afterparty. If a President makes him swallow those words and a few teeth, is that not greatness, too? So let’s get it on: 43 men enter, one man leaves....
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Prosopography - Wikipedia →
an investigation of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis.
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Acheiropoieta - Wikipedia →
Icons alleged to have come into existence miraculously, not by a human painter (e.g. Mandylion, The Shroud of Turin, and Clarus the Dogcow)
MOOF!
Papabile - Wikipedia →
An unofficial term used in many languages to describe a cardinal of whom it is thought likely or possible that he will be elected pope[…T]he word papabile is also used on different occasions, such as the election of a President or for less important roles.
Tumblr’s note: this should not be confused with “palpable,” but that’d be funny, yo
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Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian →
The openly gay teen, who came out to his parents at age 14 and has had a steady boyfriend for the past seven months, said he first began to suspect he might be different last year, when he started feeling an odd stirring within himself every time he passed a church. The more conservative the church, the stronger his desire was to enter it. “It’s like I don’t even know who I am...
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“God is salvation
God’s the staff
God is good
God’s the shaft
...”
– James W. Thompson
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“It’s not class warfare when the rich beat the crap out of the poor....”
– Christopher Howard
This comment woulda been more betterer with scare quotes
“Scare quotes” sounds like “scarecrow.” Like, woah, doooood
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Semantic Time Travel →
petitchou:
What does it mean that in Old English there were 40 words for the Christian God in his capacity as ruler (e.g. wundorcyning), whereas today we have just six (e.g. the Almighty)? Why were there 44 ways to call someone wise in Old English, but we can add only that he is sage and judicious?
Whereas a dictionary makes it possible to follow the history of a word, a historical thesaurus...
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“You keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it: The...”
– Joss Whedon (via vinh)
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Can a Lightsaber Cut Through Superman? - Gizmodo →
NO
• Jedis can’t actually cut through “everything” with the sword. Example: the big huge door in Episode I. They had to jam in their lightsabers and “melt” a doorway inside the door. The sword was fast to go into the door because they applied all the force to the tip, but was slow cutting because the Jedis are only so strong. Picture you cutting through a watermelon....
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Feynman point - Wikipedia →
a sequence of six 9s which begins at the 762nd decimal place of π. It is named after physicist Richard Feynman, who once stated during a lecture he would like to memorize the digits of π until that point, so he could recite them and quip “nine nine nine nine nine nine and so on”, suggesting, ironically and incorrectly, that π is rational.
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DeBeers is DeDevil
thatsnotpunny:
what’s the scariest part about getting married?
the ring
It works on three levels.
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'What Did the Founders Smell Like?' by Chris White →
George Washington probably reeked. A man who oozes that much machismo—from dancing, riding, distilling or liberating—is going to pit out a few shirts. No matter how much you clean hippopotamus-tusk dentures (on display at Mount Vernon!), there’s a good chance that your breath will smell like hot cottage cheese.
[Archive and Rest of Article at McSweeney’s]
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